RETRACTATION OF MR. SEDGWICK. 101 



found this clew no guide through these ancient 

 labyrinths, and, sorely against our will, we were 

 compelled to snap its thread . . . We now dare 

 affirm that geologj', not seen through the mist of 

 any theory, but taken as a plain succession of 

 monuments and facts, offers one firm cumulative 

 argument against the hypothesis of development." 

 What first strikes us in this declaration is the 

 tone in which the writer speaks of his own 

 convictions. Cuvier, Agassiz, Owen, may all be 

 wrong; but this writer cannot. He has seen 

 what he speaks of. Against " a dogmatical dicta- 

 tion contrary to the sober rules of sound philo- 

 sophy," (his own words,) there might have surely 

 been some protection in the necessitj" of retracta- 

 tion to which the best geologists are occasionally 

 reduced. For example, we have Professor Sedg- 

 wick, in 1831, undoing a theory he had formerly 

 embraced : 



" We now connect the gravel of the plains with 

 the elevation of the newest system of mountains. 

 .... That these statements militate against 

 opinions but a few years since held almost uni- 

 versally among us, cannot be denied. But theories 

 of diluvial gravel, like all other ardent generalizations 

 of an advancing science, must ever be regarded but as 



